We found a team to take a $3 million a year minor league goalie off our hands without us having to retain salary or take a stinky contract in return. Are you kidding me? Start the car and go. Any team in the league takes that deal, regardless of how broke their owner may or may not be.

It's also worth noting that by the time we are ready to contend, the Bolts and Leafs windows will be closing. We are at a different stage than they are.

The good news is that this all comes to a head in a year anyway - either Melnyk keeps Chabot, or he sells the team to someone who can. Stubborn as he is, he's smart enough to know that his franchise value will take a massive hit if Chabot is allowed to take an offer sheet and the fans go into full riot mode, creditors start calling loans, league starts getting involved, etc.

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The Senators are most certainly at a different stage than Tampa and the Leafs. Those teams have a window of opportunity to win the SC; the Senators don't and most likely won't ever have such a window under Melnyk due to his inability or unwillingness to invest more in the team. We has some very good to excellent pieces in Zibanejad, Karlsson, Duchene, Stone that could be built around but sold them off due to budget reasons.

The Senators are most certainly at a different stage than Tampa and the Leafs. Those teams have a window of opportunity to win the SC; the Senators don't and most likely won't ever have such a window under Melnyk due to his inability or unwillingness to invest more in the team. We has some very good to excellent pieces in Zibanejad, Karlsson, Duchene, Stone that could be built around but sold them off due to budget reasons.

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Our story for the last 10 or so years has been that missing piece or two because of the lack of budget to fill holes. We've been working with a peg leg and that same old story will likely creep in again at some point.

And Tampa
Rest assured Brayden Point will score a lot of goals against us in the next 8years with our help...

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So you would have proffered Condon sitting in the press box, for the entire year, drawing his 3 million, rather than unloading his contract, so that Tampa would have made a deal with another team to gain some cap relief?

It's weird that out-of-market people are getting so riled up about what the Senators are doing.

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Well this is the first time it's been done to this extent, so not surprising it's getting attention. The only franchise that touches it is the Coyotes, and I don't believe they've even gone this extreme with it.

So you would have proffered Condon sitting in the press box, for the entire year, drawing his 3 million, rather than unloading his contract, so that Tampa would have made a deal with another team to gain some cap relief?

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We were well below the floor already, so the move was unnecessary for anyone not named Eugene Melnyk.

It's weird that out-of-market people are getting so riled up about what the Senators are doing.

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Didn't someone mention before that all this cap circumvention has an overall effect on escrow or future cap numbers around the league? Even if it's just a few drops in the bucket, it would hurt players. It was one thing that Arizona was doing that while trying to get a new owner in a potentially lucrative and important US tv market...it's another to do it in a good Canadian market.

I wouldn't be surprised if the NHLPA was sending out a few media grumblings and getting a bit of momentum going to close up a loophole like this in the future CBA.

Didn't someone mention before that all this cap circumvention has an overall effect on escrow or future cap numbers around the league? Even if it's just a few drops in the bucket, it would hurt players. It was one thing that Arizona was doing that while trying to get a new owner in a potentially lucrative and important US tv market...it's another to do it in a good Canadian market.

I wouldn't be surprised if the NHLPA was sending out a few media grumblings and getting a bit of momentum going to close up a loophole like this in the future CBA.

So you would have proffered Condon sitting in the press box, for the entire year, drawing his 3 million, rather than unloading his contract, so that Tampa would have made a deal with another team to gain some cap relief?

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As fans, we shouldn't have to worry about this stuff. Unfortunately, the Ottawa Senators have made us care about the financials.

I think the fact that the trade helps a Leafs division rival is a big part of why it would be getting play in the Toronto media.

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The Toronto media seems to conveniently forget that the Ottawa Senators have also helped them free up some money to re-sign Mitch Marner. Mitch Marner and Point are gonna feast on the Ottawa Senators for years now thanks to the Ottawa Senators.

So you would have proffered Condon sitting in the press box, for the entire year, drawing his 3 million, rather than unloading his contract, so that Tampa would have made a deal with another team to gain some cap relief?

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Where are the proofs Condon would have sit in the press box and the proofs Tampa would have made a deal with another team??

Where are the proofs Condon would have sit in the press box and the proofs Tampa would have made a deal with another team??

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Common sense tells us that the Senators are in a re-build, and want all their own young goaltenders to play as much as possible, wherever they are in the system.

Ottawa had three goaltenders on one way contracts, and wanted Anderson and Nilsson to play ......... that left Condon the odd man out, and nowhere to play in the Senators system ....... they, logically, wanted him off the books ................ the trade to Tampa accomplished that.

Tampa wanted to free up cap space, for their own reasons, and wanted to move the Callahan contract .......... so it was a matter of time before they moved it, so if not to the Senators, then to another team.

Sounds all fairly reasonable, but there are those little signs that are disturbing...no stability in the front office, bare bones management group etc.
Just doesn't fit a true "rebuild"

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How is it not a true rebuild? It's not that complicated, all teams do the same :

- move older and expensive veterans for picks/prospects/young players while reducing expenses significantly and preparing the salary cap structure for the future. Result is the they accumulate young assets and the team get much younger as they give more opportunities to young players. The goal is to create a flowing talent pipeline at all positions.

They have been doing that part really well. The problem and why we really don't like it is because 1) we really hate Melnyk 2) this rebuild is "extreme" and the vets sacrificed were not even "old" (Stone, Duchene, Karlsson, Hoffman, Dzingel were all easily under 30) and 3) there's gotta be a limit to cutting expenses? 4) Melnyk creates so much havoc around him.

We know the reason why this rebuild happened is just not because the "core is too old" like the LA Kings for example. A financially healthy owner wouldn't have given up on a core that young. He would have hired better coaching, management, replace players like MacArthur and Methot adequately, support Anderson better, have better depth to not suffer from injuries, etc.

Except this is incorrect. Because Melnyk has taken money out of the team to pay for his other businesses. It happened when he bought the team. He didn't pay it all in cash, because he wanted to keep his liquid cash in Biovale stocks/other ventures because he thought they would appreciate in value faster than the carrying costs of the sens debt. That's why billionaires take on debt. Not because they can't pay it off, but because they believe that they can beat the interest rate investing the money somewhere else. They do it all the time.

But he lost that gamble. No problem for the first ten years when he was paying off the interest himself. But now he is broke, and the team revenue has to cover the interest, tanking the player budget.

Is some of the debt from operations that should be paid of by team revenues? Yes. How much, as you said, we don't know.

But it is clear the original debt was never paid down and it's pretty clear that Melnyk is not willing to pay it down out of his pocket since it's officially in the teams name now and everybody has forgotten where it came from. So now we have to rebuild while carrying 5-10 mil in interest on money Melnyk took out of the business to fund his other projects and YES, this is going to lead fans to wonder if we would have made the same moves, and be more competitive again sooner, if had we not had Melnyk's debt around our neck.

Like maybe we trade Condon for a player/coach type leader, maybe a local guy, who has already won the cup, that is signed for longer than a year and is really committed to the city/rebuild, and can help the youth find their way. It's not like adding 1-2 mid-level players are going to make the difference whether we are int he lottery next year. But maybe it makes the difference between this year being a character building experience for the rookies vs being completely miserable raking up loss after loss after loss.

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Well, I certainly don't follow all this as much as you seem to, particularly not anymore but thanks for the info of what happened in the beginning, I didn't even know. Like you said, he lost the gamble pretty bad and well, it doesn't seem like it's the only one he lost recently. He could have had the whole team + arena debt cleared entirely by now if he played his cards differently, but sometimes business is "cruel" like that. I'm kinda happy I'm not a billionaire lol, I prefer to lose thousands instead of millions.

Anyway, Melnyk rather see us suffer than just clear out the debt, sell them team and go to Bahamas with a lot of money. He could easily get 600-650 M$ for the team. Is it the pride that he wants to remain the owner? Or is he waiting for a new arena downtown to sell higher? What is it?

Where are the proofs Condon would have sit in the press box and the proofs Tampa would have made a deal with another team??

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I love how it's so easy for Tampa to hang up the phone and call up another team that is eager and willing to eat an LTIR contract, and to have it done before the start of the season. Yet when we were discussing the Ceci trade in that thread, and the discussion was centred around Pierre's other options, Dad was first in line asking for sources on any other trade options, citing that because the media reported no other potential landing spots for Ceci, none existed.

Common sense tells us that the Senators are in a re-build, and want all their own young goaltenders to play as much as possible, wherever they are in the system.

Ottawa had three goaltenders on one way contracts, and wanted Anderson and Nilsson to play ......... that left Condon the odd man out, and nowhere to play in the Senators system ....... they, logically, wanted him off the books ................ the trade to Tampa accomplished that.

Tampa wanted to free up cap space, for their own reasons, and wanted to move the Callahan contract .......... so it was a matter of time before they moved it, so if not to the Senators, then to another team.

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Common sense tells us it was yet another (in a very long line of them) cost cutting move as the priority over gaining or retaining assets as they circumvent the cap to unprecedented levels.

Using your logic, we should have put Hoffman on waivers last year instead of accepting a cap dump and downgraded pick in return.